It seems there's always a moon when doom is involved.
Sometimes you notice impending doom just before it actually pends or dooms or…you know, waxes from impending to !$#%$%#$. Sometimes you’re tempted by the moon to let a different kind of doom, the doom of love bend you, alter you because whether you want to or not, you love that Tempest and his milk glass mouth, his moonlight bone. And sometimes you try to flee the moon, but you're just not fast enough.
Last night the moon ate summer up as doom took a tangential turn and became less about heartbreak and more about rubber and asphalt. I noticed one of my rear tires looked extremely low. I know I tend to write with a lot of metaphors and allusions, and I can’t make any promises about the next sentence or paragraph, but this time, in this sentence, a rear tire is just a rear tire.
After confirming my supposition with a friend at dinner, I ventured into the downtown Sacramento night for my first attempt in my 40 years of life to pump air into a dreadful looking orb. I’m pretty independent. I can be alone. I get lonely, but I can be alone. I lived in San Francisco for four years, you learn to be lonely in that city, the fog on Clement Street requires it. I’m smart. I have a college degree. I can figure things out like the standard deviation of yarn strength (don’t ask, but I’ve done it) and how to make cotton candy martinis. So filling a tire should be easy.
I was empowered by my quest to blow up my rubber so my rear wouldn't get punctured by something sharp and left to smack against hot, unforgiving asphalt. I went to a gas station at 16th and X — “Air Out of Service”. That handwritten sign had the audacity to frazzle my nerves—it took me from one emotional equinox to the next. From my ready-to-take-care-of-myself-like-always equinox to my at-my-limit-of-doing-it-all-by-myself-I'm-going-to-cry-because-I'll-always-be-alone equinox. That's when I pulled out my phone and texted a friend, "This is why I hate being single....fucking almost flat tires at night #$#%$#%!" I know, not the most productive and positive way to deal with my situation. But sometimes text venting happens when you're alone. From air in tires to killing bugs to broken shower rods to creeps staring in my window to walking into a dark apartment alone late at night to….let’s face it, sex—being alone sometimes just kind of sucks! You get satisfaction out of doing it by yourself, but let's face it—it feels better when someone else does it with you.
I had a mini pity party and ventured to the next gas station at Broadway and 21st.
Arghhhh. I pulled in and had to wait for someone else to finish using the air. Didn't they know that it was all about me and my sad moon phase? I waited as this scruffy looking man parked near the popular air pumps looked through the trunk of his sports car. Finally, it was my turn to pump air (is that what you do? pump it? even when it makes a sucking noise? how does pumping equate to sucking?) into my sagging rear. I pulled the long hose towards my rear and said to myself, "figure it out fast so you don't look like an idiot." There I was, dealing with heartbreak, sad I was pumping my rear by myself, and I still cared what some stranger might think about my pumping technique. And then....
In an unmistakable southern accent, "Miss, you need some help there?"
I looked up at the Han Solo of the Chevron station on Broadway. He was scruffy, and about to become my hero.
I said while holding the hose with both hands, "Umm, I'm not sure, I've never done this before."
He said, "Let me do that for you."
And he took the hose from my hands, got on his knees, found the hole in my rear tire and turned the sucking into pumping. He asked, "Do you know how much it can take?"
I said, "I don't know what that means."
He smiled and asked if I had, "a light on my phone" so he could "look at my rear tire to see its number."
I gave him my phone but the light kept going out too fast. He said, "Hell, why don't I just use mine and do it, it's stronger and lasts longer."
(this was all very foreign to me)
And he ran his finger along the edge of my rear tire very slowly, where it meets the shiny edge of the cap, until his fingers found the spot. He found my number.
I told him, "you're kind of a parking lot super hero."
He said, "Nah, I'm just from Kentucky, this is what we do, we take care of people." (I know this to be true, firsthand).
I said, "My father is from Kentucky, from Paintsville."
He smiled, "Damn, I'm from Harlon, that's about 45 minutes from Paintsville."
I said, "My grandmother is from near Greasy Creek." And he knew it well. Greasy Creek is in the hills where the moon sits on top of trees on top of mountains on top of coal mines on top of diamonds. "What a small world," I said.
He said, "My father was a coal miner." I said, "My grandfathers and their fathers were coal miners too."
I asked him his name, thanked him, and he said, "my pleasure miss." And I left.
I'm still heartbroken over a man I fell in love with under a moon. I still fall asleep at night alone. I still have to kill my own bugs. But for a few moments, when I least expected it, I wasn't alone. Thanks to Brian—scruffy parking lot, Han Solo, lucky charm, Blue Moon of Kentucky super hero—there is a little less doom under this pending autumnal moon, at least of the rubber and asphalt kind.
And I ate Lucky Charms for dinner as I wrote this. I thought about the moon man I love, my choice to be alone as an act of love, my favorite time of the year approaching, fall and winter one more gibbous closer, I listened to Patsy Cline and Feist....and knew one thing for certain—I'll never stop loving him, no matter what the moon brings. Good or bad. Clean, dirty, or pretty.....then I bit into a blue marshmallow moon.
Blue Moon of Kentucky
I said, blue moon of Kentucky keep on a shinin'. Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue.....
My Moon My Man
My moon, my man, so changeable and such a loveable lamb to me. My care, my coat. Leave on a high note, there's nowhere to go but on.
Heart on my sleeve, not where it should be, the song's out of key again. My moon, my man, so changeable and such a loveable lamb to me. Take it slow. Take it easy on me. And shed some light. Shed some light on me please......
My moon and me. Not as good as we've been, it's the dirtiest clean I know.....
Posts
